[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 99 (Monday, July 8, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7358-S7366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FBI FILES AT THE WHITE HOUSE

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, on Wednesday, July 3, which, 
incidentally, was the cost-of-Government day, which means the last day 
after which an American family finally quit paying Government--July 4 
took on a special meaning because it was not only Independence Day, but 
because it is the first day a family could keep its own check. But, 
interestingly enough, in the midst of all the debate, a very 
interesting editorial appeared in the Washington Post, which 
characterizes itself as an independent newspaper.
  On July 3, the Washington Post said, ``FBI Files and the ex-FBI 
Author.'' That was the name of the article. It says:

       Controversy swirls around both [these issues], but it ought 
     to be possible to separate the probe of the improperly 
     requisitioned FBI reports by the Clinton White House from the 
     effort to sort out fact from fiction in former FBI agent Gary 
     Aldrich's book about life at the White House.

  I agree with this. I agree that the commentary of a popular book 
ought to be separate from the very, very serious issue of hundreds of 
our citizens' personal FBI files going to the--hundreds. At this time 
the current number keeps going up. It started out 300. Then it went to 
407. Then it went to 600. Then 700. The last report I have seen is 900. 
It is almost beyond belief. Both that the White House could request 
those personal files and that those files could be violated by our own 
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  The Post says:

       The three probes need to find out if the country has an 
     abuse of presidential power on its hands or whether it is 
     witnessing yet one more White House staff-administered blow 
     to this president's prestige.

  Mr. President, for my own part, while there is deep concern about 
what has transpired at the White House, I think so far the public 
discourse underestimates what transpired at the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation. It is beyond my understanding how this many personal 
files or the data in those files could be copied and so routinely made 
available to the White House without fire alarms and sirens going off 
from the front to the back door and all the way to the Director's 
office. I cannot imagine how this could happen. Now, the Director has 
said there was an egregious breach of honor between the White House and 
the FBI, but much more will have to be answered than that simple 
question.

  Mr. President, I see we have been joined by the distinguished Senator 
from Arizona. I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator from Arizona for 
his remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia both for 
taking time to get into this matter and also for yielding time to me.
  I was perplexed, to say the least, as I sat through hearings as a 
member of the Senate Judiciary Committee just before the Fourth of July 
break, hearing testimony from Mr. Livingstone and others regarding this 
matter of the FBI files. I am going to come back to some conclusions 
that came out of that hearing and some questions that remain in a 
moment.
  I thought, first, perhaps, it would be useful to discuss generally 
what we have here. There have been, especially in the time since 
Watergate, numerous investigations of officials involved in different 
administrations. To some extent, I think this has been politically 
motivated. To a large extent, I think it is a process that is important 
in a democracy, because people need to have confidence in their 
Government, particularly when people in high places are accused of 
wrongdoing or there is a potential of wrongdoing. We have established a 
system whereby an independent kind of investigator or prosecutor called 
the special counsel is appointed by the Attorney General, with court 
acquiescence, to investigate matters. There have been prosecutions from 
time to time in administrations since the Watergate matter that have 
demonstrated it is wise to have these kinds of special counsel 
available to look into such matters.
  While there may be some politics involved, and certainly Republicans 
believe there is politics involved in some of the investigations in the 
Reagan and Bush administrations, and I am sure that some Democrats 
believe there is glee in Republican ranks to find things wrong now in a 
Democratic administration, the fact is it is still important to try to 
get to the bottom of some of these matters, particularly where it goes 
beyond politics. I think it can be demonstrated with this 
administration that it has gone far beyond politics, that there has 
been wrongdoing, and that there are people in this administration that, 
to say the least, have been ethically challenged.
  As a matter of fact, Mr. President, according to an article written 
by Mary McGrory in the Washington Post,

       President Clinton said that his administration would be the 
     most ethical administration in the history of the Republic.

  That was shortly after he was inaugurated. I think history will 
reveal that this is one of the most ethically challenged 
administrations in the history of the Republic. This FBI scandal is, 
frankly, just the latest of the scandals in the Clinton White House. As 
the Senator from Georgia pointed out, this involves the misuse of about 
900--at least that is the number we have so far--900 FBI files.
  Going back to reflect on what has occurred earlier in 
this administration, and again this is not really partisan because if 
you look at the last three Presidents, President Carter, President 
Reagan, and President Bush, I think almost all Americans would agree 
that all three of these Presidents had the highest ethical standards, 
Carter a Democrat, the other two Republicans. It did not matter what 
their politics were. I think most Americans believe that all three of 
them are people of the greatest integrity and repute. To the extent 
there was any wrongdoing in any of their administrations each one of 
them had accusations made, they took responsibility, they tried to 
clean house, and their integrity, I think, remains without question.

  In this particular administration, look at what we have. We have 
first of all, Roger Altman, Treasury Secretary who misled Congress 
about his discussions of a Whitewater-connected S&L. He resigned. Henry 
Cisneros, the HUD Secretary under investigation by court-appointed 
counsel for lying to the FBI. Mike Espy, former Secretary of 
Agriculture, under investigation for taking illegal gifts. He resigned. 
Web Hubble, a very close associate of the President and First Lady, 
Associate Attorney General, has been sentenced to 21 months in jail for 
mail fraud and tax evasion. William Kennedy, former associate White 
House counsel, and possibly one of the people involved in the hirings 
of Craig Livingstone, failed to pay Social Security taxes and resigned. 
Bernard Nussbaum, former White House counsel, resigned his post after 
being accused of improper contacts with Whitewater investigators. David 
Watkins, former White House director of administration, resigned after 
he used a Presidential helicopter to play golf. Hazel O'Leary, 
Secretary of Energy, has committees looking after her travel, and 
though she is still in the job, questions remain. More than a dozen 
indictments relating generally to Whitewater, most resulting in plea 
bargains, if not convictions. As a matter of fact, three close 
associates of the President were convicted by a jury, including the 
President's hand-picked successor, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker.
  Then the Travelgate matter. It was as a result of the Travelgate 
investigation that the information about the FBI files came out. It 
was, really, quite by accident. The House committee investigating the 
Travelgate matter had asked for 3,000 documents, all of which had been 
denied by the White House, 3,000 documents. Finally, under threat of 
subpoena and contempt of Congress if they did not comply with the 
subpoena, the White House agreed to turn over one-third of those 
documents. It was one of those 1,000 documents that led investigators 
of the House committee into the FBI file issue, because there was a 
reference to FBI files having been obtained, I think, perhaps, relating 
to Billy Dale who was the fired head of the Travel Office of the White 
House. The rest, as is commonly said, is history.

[[Page S7359]]

  It was learned first that there were about 300 files, then 400, and 
as the Senator from Georgia pointed out, it may now be as many as 900 
files improperly obtained, most of which were reviewed. It is unclear 
whether information in those files has been revealed to people 
improperly. In any event, the mere review of those files was improper, 
as was the acquisition of those files from the FBI. Also, quite 
improper was the storage of the files then in the White House, rather 
than having them returned to the FBI. The fact they were not secure and 
many people had access to them who should not have had access to them, 
we do not know yet what might have been done with those files and 
whether information was copied or used. We may not know for a long time 
whether information in those files, stored away in somebody's drawer, 
might later come back to haunt some of the people whose files were 
improperly obtained.

  All of this is beginning to come out. It is not coming out from the 
White House. It is having to be gathered by the House committee, the 
Senate committee, the special prosecutor. Just little bits and pieces 
of information keep coming out. There is no coming clean by this 
administration, which was going to be the most ethical in history. As a 
matter of fact, the President originally attributed this whole matter 
to a bureaucratic snafu. Now, I think one of two things is true, Mr. 
President, but a bureaucratic snafu is not one of them.
  Here is what we know for a fact: A political operative, so described 
in the press, I am talking about Craig Livingstone, part of his 
responsibilities in previous campaigns had been opposition research, 
and part of it had been to cause Republicans traveling around George 
Bush, I think, in particular, trouble when he stopped at various 
locations. But Craig Livingstone has had a history in Democratic 
campaigns of snooping on the opposition, learning facts. I believe it 
was by his own admission or perhaps he was proud of the fact that he 
learned things about the Dan Quayle campaign, took them back to the 
Mondale campaign, and, as a result of that in the debate that Dan 
Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen had, Bentsen was able to come up with the 
great line, ``You're no John Kennedy,'' because Livingstone had learned 
in advance that Quayle was going to compare himself during this debate 
to John Kennedy.

  So here you have a man who has admitted that he is a political 
snoop--some say dirt digger, but let us use the term that is generally 
applied, and that is a person skilled in ``opposition research,'' an 
individual who finds out things about the opposition in political 
campaigns, a person with no professional security experience 
whatsoever.
  Now, when this administration comes into power, people who have been 
there through Democrat and Republican administrations, nonpartisan, 
professional security people, who have been in charge of White House 
personnel files, to get clearance so that the people who are in the 
White House are all cleared, are let go. Mr. Livingstone is brought in, 
and nobody seems to remember who hired him. Nobody can recall. This is 
the first job this guy has in the White House, and he cannot remember 
who hired him. I think if I got a job in the White House, I would 
remember who hired me. But that is another matter.
  This person, with no experience whatsoever, certainly not a 
professional in security matters, is put in charge of what? He is put 
in charge of the most sensitive material on any American citizen--their 
FBI file. These are the things which people have had to tell the FBI in 
order to get clearance. They are the most sensitive things about their 
history that exist. These FBI files, then, are routinely reviewed by 
the security office in order to give these clearances. Craig 
Livingstone is specifically given the job of clearing people for the 
ability to be in the White House and have access to the White House.
  Now, is it a coincidence that somebody who is skilled primarily in 
opposition research in political campaigns just happens to come across 
300, 400, 600, maybe 900 FBI files--almost exclusively of Republicans--
and that he then has a friend of his, who also has been involved in 
this kind of political activity, review those files? Is it just 
coincidence that a person with that kind of background then begins to 
conduct this kind of activity? Maybe so. That is one possibility. The 
other possibility is that he was told to do it and he was following 
orders. Those are the two possibilities, Mr. President.
  There was no bureaucratic snafu because there was no bureaucrat 
involved. There was a paid political operative involved. One of the 
things that I think we need to find out is exactly what did Craig 
Livingstone and Anthony Marceca do when they worked in the various 
Presidential campaigns that they worked in? Were they involved, as has 
been reported, in doing opposition research? Why were they hired? Who 
made the decision to hire them? Why were they hired? People with no 
security background skills, but very skilled in opposition research--
apparently--according to Craig Livingstone's own comments in his 
hometown newspaper. Why were they hired? Who hired them? What 
instructions were they given? Were they simply operating on their own? 
Based upon the information that has come out in the hearings, it is 
very unclear whether or not anybody gave them instructions. It is not 
resolved yet. That is an open question. It may be that if you hire a 
plumber, you will assume he will do plumbing. And if you hire an 
opposition researcher, the assumption is that he will do some 
opposition research for you. Maybe there does not have to be an 
explicit instruction. As a matter of fact, maybe under the doctrine of 
plausible deniability here, the instructions were given in a wink and a 
nod so that anybody higher up in the White House could say, ``Gee, I 
never told him to dig up dirt on Republicans. I guess he just did that 
on his own. We certainly did not ask him to do it.''

  So it seems to me that one of two things is true. When you hire a 
political operative, a person who is skilled in opposition research, by 
his own account, and he happens to gather up the files of the 
opposition on, in effect, 800 or 900 Republicans, it could be 
coincidence. That could be true. It could also be that it was 
intentional. If it was intentional, it was for the purpose of learning 
information about these people which could later be used for political 
purposes. There has been a lot of speculation about possible motives. 
There is no question that Billy Dale, the head of the travel office, 
was greatly mistreated by this administration. The FBI was brought in 
to investigate. He was eventually prosecuted and, of course, he was 
found innocent. But his file was among those requested, and the files 
were from A to G, and that certainly falls within that area. So it 
could have been to get information on him, and the rest of the files 
were used for cover.
  It could have been that this administration, intent on learning 
everything it could about 900 Republicans--there were something like a 
thousand people who needed access to the White House, who needed 
clearance, and they had not even complied with the FBI yet so they 
could be cleared. It was a year or two before many people who needed 
security clearances in this administration were cleared. It finally 
became a scandal about this same time. Dee Dee Myers, the press 
secretary, did not even have clearance. Time after time, people who 
needed clearance put off interviews with the FBI, refused to give them 
information. It was not until after this that the GAO did an audit and 
the White House had to clean up its act and at least get the 
information together to provide the security clearances for people who 
required access to the White House.
  There is speculation that in order to, in effect, cover for that 
deficiency and inadequacy, the thought was that if we dig up some dirt 
on Republicans, that will even it out and there will not be so much 
heat put on us. Maybe it was simply for future use, or for present and 
future use. We do not know. We have not gotten answers to some 
questions yet. Either it was an enormous coincidence, or there was 
something more sinister behind it.
  In either event, it was wrong, and no one has denied that access to 
these FBI files by people who should not have had access for these 
reasons was wrong, was unethical and, perhaps, depending upon if IRS 
material was in the files, for example, was illegal as well.
  So let us just conclude with some questions here that I think we are

[[Page S7360]]

going to need to get the answers to before we make any accusations. I 
do not think we know enough yet to make accusations. Here are some of 
the questions I would like to have answered. Let us tie down exactly 
who hired Livingstone and why. It was, as George Stephanopolous points 
out, an incredibly loose, informal, and I would say negligent approach 
to hiring one of the most important people in the White House. He 
happened to be on board when Kennedy got there and, therefore, they 
just assumed he should be the guy in charge. So his employment was then 
ratified. Well, who decided all of that, and on what basis was 
Livingstone hired as opposed to some professional?
  As a matter of fact, the White House had a recommendation before it 
by the then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, my 
predecessor, Senator DeConcini from Arizona--a Democrat, by the way. 
After reviewing the White House security office situation, that 
committee made recommendations, conveyed by Senator DeConcini, that the 
White House had to get its act together and appoint a professional, 
nonpartisan person to head this office. That was not done. As a matter 
of fact, I have read that letter of transmittal. There was a very nice 
response back by the then White House counsel, Lloyd Cutler, who 
thanked Senator DeConcini for the information and said they would get 
back to the committee after deciding what to do. As far as I know, 
there was never any further response. It was known that there was a 
problem here. So, in a bipartisan way, recommendations were made to the 
White House to clean it up. But it apparently was not cleaned up.
  Who discussed this within the White House? Why were the political 
operatives put in charge of reviewing these files? What activities did 
Livingstone and Marceca actually perform in the Democratic campaigns of 
George McGovern, Ed Muskie, Geraldine Ferraro, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, 
and others? Are these men the political opposition researchers, dirt 
diggers, spoofs, or whatever you want to call it? Did Livingstone 
infiltrate the Dan Quayle campaign? Who gave them their instructions 
and what were they?
  Did anyone in the White House ever become aware of any of the 
information from those files? This information only came to light, as I 
said, because the House oversight committee was going to subpoena it 
from the White House. But there are still 2,000 documents that have not 
been reviewed. There is now an arrangement under which the House 
committee can look at those 2,000 documents. But they cannot be taken 
out of the White House possession. What is in those 2,000 documents?
  Finally, when the problem was discovered, why did the White House not 
come forward? Why was Craig Livingstone hired? If it was merely a 
mistake, as the White House indicated, one would have thought, if this 
is the most ethical White House in the history of the Republic, that 
the White House would have come forward and would have said, ``We want 
to find out something here; we want to make everybody aware of it; here 
is a big mistake; here is what it is.'' You would have assumed they 
would have come forward.
  One of the suggestions of wrongdoing is there is an attempt to cover 
up. Certainly in this case there has been an attempt to cover up.
  So I realize these are more questions than answers but I think these 
are the things that we need to get out, and we need to find the answers 
to. And in this case, unlike the assertion with regard to certain other 
situations, there is already an acknowledgment by everyone that there 
was something wrong done. It was a question about whether it was 
intentional, or just accidental. But clearly it was wrong.
  So I do not think we can have the excuse that we should not be 
spending money to look into this, that there should not be hearings to 
get to the bottom of it, and so on. Remember that when there is any 
illegality, or impropriety, or something that is wrong and gives people 
less confidence in their Government, we need to get to the bottom of it 
because the essence of a democratic republic, such as ours, is that the 
people run their government, they have confidence in it, they have 
trust in it, and when that lags, when that fails, when it frays, then 
the very fabric of our Government begins to come apart.
  So, Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Georgia for having this 
discussion to bring some of these questions to the floor; to raise some 
of the questions that we still need to get answers to. And I think it 
is appropriate, both for this body and for the House of 
Representatives, to continue the investigation to get to the bottom of 
the matter so that at a very minimum nothing like this can ever happen 
again. It is people's lives that have been intruded into here; innocent 
people. And the power of the Federal Government and of the White House 
should never be used for political retribution, or to disclose the 
deepest secrets of any individual for improper purposes.
  Therefore, we have every reason, I think, to ask these questions and 
to try to get to the bottom of this FBI file matter.
  Again, I thank the Senator from Georgia for bringing this matter to 
the light of day.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I want to pay particular compliment to 
the Senator from Arizona. I believe he has framed the substance of this 
issue very succinctly, in a way that is most understanding in the 
phrasing of the questions for which we must resolve. It was exceedingly 
well done. I want to compliment the Senator from Arizona for his usual 
form as he deals with this very, very sensitive subject.

  Mr. President, I want to go back to the Washington Post editorial 
that appeared on July 3. They point out that we now have three separate 
inquiries, or investigations into what went wrong between the White 
House and the FBI. There is the House inquiry, a Senate inquiry, and, 
of course, the Justice Department has now turned this matter over to 
Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr.
  They say:

       The three probes need to find out if the country has an 
     abuse of Presidential power on its hands or whether it is 
     witnessing yet one more White House staff-administered blow 
     to this President's prestige.

  Then they go on again to say that we need to separate these probes 
from the books that are appearing on a regular basis, and I concur with 
that entirely.
  It goes on to say:

       Four days of congressional hearings, however, have yet to 
     adequately explain why hundreds of FBI reports on employees 
     of former Republican administrations ended up in the office 
     of former party operative and now resigned White House 
     personnel security director Craig Livingstone. For nearly two 
     years, sensitive FBI documents were maintained in an office 
     and vault where political advance types, interns and 
     volunteers--without security clearances--could have had easy 
     access to them. What happened to security standards?

  This is a question that every American citizen will now want 
answered, and answered quickly.
  Mr. President, we have been joined by the Senator from Montana, and I 
yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Georgia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BURNS. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, we have all come off of a week of vacation with a lot 
of travel. You get to visit with a lot of people. We think that the 
whole world is focused in on what happens here in Washington, DC. To 
our surprise it is not. Maybe that is something to be thankful about.
  Mr. President, I am baffled after coming off this vacation that I can 
be sitting in a committee hearing with CEO's and president's of 
companies like Netscape, like Microsoft; like all of the companies that 
have come to be, within the last 10 or 15 years, powerful; and 
companies in the new technologies that we are using today, listening to 
these president's and CEO's argue for strong encryption technology that 
is vital to the future of businesses while at the same moment this 
administration is apologizing to the American people for the exposure 
of confidential FBI files--I just find absolutely unbelievable that 
this kind of snafu could be permitted by and enacted by several of the 
employees at the White House

[[Page S7361]]

that have unlimited access to extremely--I say ``extremely''--
confidential information on hundreds of prominent Americans.
  After this incident, it gives me pause. And it might be clear that 
not only does this President believe in big Government, but, I add, 
does he also believe in Big Brother? Contrary to popular opinion, Big 
Brother is probably watching and listening to all of us.

  A startling fact revealed this week is that over the last 4 years 
electronic eavesdropping has increased by 100 percent; from 340 in 1993 
to an estimated 700 in 1996. Does that mean that we have more criminal 
activity? I do not think so. I think in fact that most of the crime 
figures are going the other way. The 1994 Communications Assistance for 
Law Enforcement Act mandates that all of the Nation's telephone 
carriers build special access for Government wiretappers as these new 
telephone companies develop new digital telephone systems, and that 
access makes it easier for the Government to listen to just about 
anybody or anything that they want to.
  Right now in this country among the business community--and after the 
passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that allowed this new 
superinformation highway to be built and to be advanced--we are seeing 
that information highway used for many purposes: Business creation, 
national security, communications, and exchanging information. Most of 
the integrity of that information highway will depend on the kind of 
encryption or the codes that we can put so that whoever we mail to we 
make sure that it is for their eyes only and that it has not been 
monkeyed with or tampered with.
  Any of the three is crucial in doing business on today's information 
highway. It is just like you drive a truck. If you want to ship some 
goods to Pennsylvania, you use a public highway. That could be called 
the Internet. What do you do? You lock the truck. The truck gets on the 
highway, gets off the highway. You want to make sure that your property 
is protected. That is very essential in this business, this business of 
high tech and using the information highway.
  So basically, we need security through encryption technology to 
protect our bank transactions, our health transactions--telemedicine is 
a reality nowadays. We will deliver our medical services via the 
information highway. Your medical records should be kept secure--
Internet commerce; in other words, if you are doing business on the 
Internet, you have communiques for your people, their eyes only--and, 
of course, software security.
  There is intense international competition in the technology of 
encryption. So, Mr. President, we do not live in a vacuum. Other 
countries are developing encryption technology. But American software 
companies are hurt by the old World War II-type mentality to encryption 
technology.
  Ironically, the only obstacle to creating the safe environment in 
cyberspace is none other than the White House. The President actually 
argues it is imperative for Government to keep a decoder key, a decoder 
key--they call it key escrow--of each company's encryption codes for 
public safety. I am wondering whose safety they are really looking out 
for.
  This graph sums it up for us. Confidential FBI files and back door 
gateways to our computers are off limits. It is off limits. People can 
understand a snafu, but they do not understand when their privacy has 
been invaded without their knowledge and without them giving authority 
to look at that information.
  If you are having security troubles with confidential paper files, 
how can the Government be trusted with highly sensitive proprietary 
encryption codes for multibillion-dollar high-tech companies? I just 
happen to believe that the American people have real concerns about Big 
Brother. It is called trust. They just do not trust the Federal 
Government to have any kind of control over their privacy anymore. And 
using the FBI to investigate anybody is only the tip of the iceberg 
when it comes to the potential for corruption in the computer industry.
  I have America on my mind today, and I am really concerned about the 
stand that the administration has taken on encryption. I was in Palo 
Alto on Monday, a week ago, talking about this very thing and, yes, it 
is something that we are not allowed to export, an encryption that goes 
beyond the 40-bit-link standard. We can buy it in this country. We can 
use it in this country. It is about a $15 billion a year export 
business that was locking our software production. You can talk about 
strictly a business deal, but basically we must have encryption if we 
are to move more things electronically, even for national security.
  I urge the President to rethink his position on encryption technology 
and just support the efforts to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. I 
take that very seriously. I think this Government should take it very 
seriously. And I think the people of this country should have very, 
very serious concerns with even a little snafu. And it is not a little 
snafu, folks. It is not little. It is big. And it is just the basis of 
a free society.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Montana. He 
brings to the Senate floor a unique expertise on privacy in the new 
technology and I appreciate very much his sharing that with us here 
this afternoon.
  In just one moment I am going to yield to the Senator from Idaho, but 
returning to this editorial as a postscript of what we heard from the 
Senator from Montana and a prelude to what we will hear from the 
Senator from Idaho, it goes on to say, and I quote:

       A deeply disturbing picture already has emerged based on 
     sworn depositions the House Committee on Reform and Oversight 
     obtained from Mr. Livingstone and his hand-picked detailee, 
     Army civilian investigator and political operative, Anthony 
     Marceca. The deposition of former White House counsel William 
     Kennedy III adds to the concern.

  Adds to the concern.

       If the new administration attached much importance to 
     security requirements for White House employment, it is not 
     evident.

  I repeat: ``It is not evident.''
  With that, Mr. President, I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator 
from Idaho.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Idaho is recognized 
for up to 15 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from 
Georgia, and also the Senator from Montana, for their comments on this 
very critical issue.
  I see two lines of thought when it comes to the White House and the 
responsibility as it relates to the FBI files and controversy. The 
first line is that the White House masterminded the request for the FBI 
files in order to compile a political enemies list and make trouble for 
their political opponents. That is the first line I think any 
reasonable person listening might gather.
  The second line is that Craig Livingstone operated independently, and 
if the White House is guilty of anything then it is guilty only of 
incompetence or sheer ignorance. Somehow one of those lines in the 
hearings that are underway must prevail.
  Now, if none of those are true, then I would offer a third option, 
what I call the agricultural approach. Maybe it is from my background, 
but it goes something like this. In farming country, you should not be 
too surprised if you are growing wheat and you plant wheat that wheat 
is what you get.
  What am I saying here? I am saying that if you plant a political 
operative as a director of the Office of Personnel Security, and a 
political operative who boasts about helping in the dirty tricks of the 
last Clinton campaign, you should not be too surprised if you harvest a 
crop of dirty tricks and FBI files. In other words, you reap what you 
sow, and it appears that the White House has sown some pretty bad seed 
in the Office of Personnel Security.
  The point is that even if the White House did not plan this 
operation, it has established the kind of culture that allows and even 
encourages abuse of power to occur.
  What do I mean by that? I mean an approach to Government that is 
fundamentally at odds with the concept of the limited central 
authority. I mean an elitist view that casually accepts the misuse of 
power as long as the individuals involved are members of the

[[Page S7362]]

politically correct circle driven by politically correct goals. I mean 
an environment where honor and character get lost somewhere in the 
political spin of the week.

  It is not just Craig Livingstone or Anthony Marceca. In a previous 
White House, Republican or Democrat, those two would have been stopped 
well before any confidential files were ever requested. In fact, 
someone like Mr. Livingstone, with his background and lack of 
professional credentials, simply would not have made it to any post in 
any other White House except this one.
  Even the President's own party recognized the potential problems that 
they are now having to live with. Former Senator Dennis DeConcini 
reviewed White House security operations 2 years previously and 
recommended a number of changes, including getting a new chief of 
security who was nonpartisan and professionally qualified.
  That is a Democrat Senator saying to a Democrat White House: You have 
a problem down there, and you ought to fix it so you do not have a 
problem. Of course, he was ignored. But in a culture that rewards 
political gamesmanship, the most qualified individuals are those with 
the greatest skills on outwitting the opposition. And in that culture, 
Craig Livingstone was not just adequate, he was an outstanding 
candidate for the job. His fellow political operative, Anthony Marceca, 
was an outstanding candidate for his assistant.
  In that culture, it was no big deal to abuse the FBI and violate the 
privacy rights of innocent citizens; just make sure you do it for the 
right reasons, make sure nobody can prove anything bad came of it. That 
is the name of the game in this White House, and I think all of this is 
going to show that is the kind of game Mr. Livingstone and Mr. Marceca 
were part of.
  You would think an administration that prides itself on dedication to 
civil liberties would have shown a lot more concern about the so-called 
snafu, if it really was any surprise at all. After all, we are not 
talking about dropping by the local library and looking up some public 
official in ``Who's Who,'' or asking for an official biography on 
someone. These are highly confidential FBI files that can contain very 
embarrassing and even false information.
  Senators cannot get these files. You and I would need a good, 
official reason, an authorization, and even then we would have to 
review the files in a strictly controlled setting in the presence--let 
me repeat--in the presence of an FBI agent. You and I could not pick up 
the phone and demand these files but for only official reasons, and 
then if they were brought to us under those official reasons, that FBI 
person would remain present so we would never be allowed to copy or 
take notes from these files. Yet here these files were just dumped at 
the White House, by all reports, and we have discovered that they were 
accessible to interns and others without security clearances.
  Where are the White House civil libertarians, who should be raising 
the roof about this breach of trust and this abuse of power? The 
Constitution is not self-enforcing. Our liberties require actual 
defenders and actual champions. Yet, in the culture of the present 
administration, this misconduct gets nothing more than labeled as a 
bureaucratic snafu?
  How did Mr. Marceca's lawyer put it? He said his client's files 
``show a bureaucratic process being carried out by a bureaucrat * * *'' 
I guess we are supposed to assume that anything a bureaucrat does will 
be OK because, after all, the Clinton administration's motives, of 
course, were beyond question, and whatever is done in advance of its 
goals is, therefore, justifiable. Is that what the American people are 
being served up at this moment, and is that what they are expected to 
accept?
  I do not buy that explanation. I hope no one listening will. Neither 
does a majority of the American people, I think. If you look at the 
polls, they are not buying it, thank goodness.
  Let me repeat that. A majority of the American people do not believe 
the official White House explanation, and that is despite the fact that 
the media is doing its best to downplay the entire fiasco. Maybe the 
American people realize that the bureaucracy is not a thing, it is 
people, presumably officials, who are accountable to the public for 
their actions. Maybe they do not agree that supposedly noble motives of 
the Clinton bureaucracy justify every action. No, I do not think 
they believe that either. Or maybe this is just an implausible story, 
and maybe it is just one too many, story after story, spin after spin, 
that has come out of this White House. Thank goodness the American 
people are starting to disbelieve.

  Let us not forget how we learned about these files, though, in the 
first place. While we are trying to understand the spin of false 
information, the House committee investigating the improper firing of 
Billy Dale and other White House travel officials or employees had to 
threaten jail to the White House counsel in order to shake relevant 
documents loose. It had already been determined that these people had 
been fired in a false way. It was in those documents, which they had to 
threaten the highest level of effort on the part of this Congress to 
get, that we discovered that Billy Dale's files were requested, and 
that was only the beginning of an effort that uncovered all of this 
much larger request.
  Originally, if you remember, Mr. President, we were told it was only 
300 files. Then, lo and behold, 400 files. And, my goodness, now it is 
700 files. Originally, we were told an outdated list was at the bottom 
of the bureaucratic snafu. Then we learned no such list could possibly 
have been generated at the time through the normal resources.
  We cannot find out for sure who hired Mr. Livingstone, and no one has 
yet to explain why this work on confidential files of Republican 
appointees and former National Security Council staff was given 
priority well beyond the publicized backlog of an unfinished check on 
security clearances of hundreds of Clinton appointees. I must tell you, 
none of it makes sense. None of their stories seem to fit. All of their 
stories are a bit different.
  How, then, can Mr. Marceca take the fifth? Why would he take the 
fifth? Is it his own files he is concerned about? Something is wrong, 
dramatically wrong.
  Mr. President, to their credit, members of the President's party have 
denounced this as a clear abuse of power. ``Whose power, the 
President's?''
  ``Well, of course not. Bill didn't know about it''--excuse me--``the 
President didn't know anything about this. It was somebody down the 
line.''
  Let me suggest a culture, a style, a way of doing business in this 
White House that starts at the top. It starts with the President. He 
was the one who said we will have the most ethical White House and the 
most ethical administration in the history of our country.
  Mr. President, you did not keep any of your campaign promises. This 
is one promise as a President that you have not kept either. This is a 
White House and an administration that is now ripped and torn with 
controversy. Now a hit list, a campaign list, to go after Republicans 
or anyone else who might get in their way. I am sorry, this one does 
not wash. I think the American people recognize it does not wash, 
either.
  I think it is time the White House comes clean. Obviously, I think it 
is time this administration, and maybe this President, tell us the 
truth.
  I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments made by the 
senior Senator from Idaho. I think he has raised questions that clearly 
are on the mind of every American.
  In one moment, I am going to yield up to 7 minutes to the senior 
Senator from South Carolina, but I am first going back to this very 
telling editorial. I have been quoting it all afternoon. This is from 
the Washington Post of July 3:

       Not only was Mr. Livingstone professionally unqualified for 
     his job, but also his own background investigation raised 
     questions regarding his suitability to fill such a sensitive 
     position. Yet, when FBI background investigations on White 
     House employees arrived at the White House, they were 
     adjudicated by Mr. Livingstone, of all people, according to 
     his superior, Mr. Kennedy.
  As has been raised by every speaker here this afternoon, the 
incongruities of a person with no security background holding this 
responsibility and arbitrarily skimming through hundreds of personal 
records that he was

[[Page S7363]]

able to obtain from the FBI produces a series of formidable questions 
about the integrity of our Government and our system and the rights of 
our individual citizens.
  Mr. President, I yield up to 7 minutes at this time to the Senator 
from South Carolina.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). The senior Senator from South 
Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, it is appropriate that the Senate and 
the House of Representatives continue to examine the troubling 
developments recently uncovered at the White House. The American people 
have a right to know the details and intentions of requests from the 
Clinton administration to the FBI for hundreds and hundreds of 
sensitive background files on private citizens.
  FBI Director Freeh has ordered new procedures to protect sensitive 
background material following unjustified and improper requests by the 
Clinton White House for over 700 FBI background files. Director Freeh 
has said that the White House had no justification for gathering these 
files and that the situation was an egregious violation of privacy. 
Director Freeh said that the requests from President Clinton's 
operatives in many instances served no official purpose and at one 
point he stated that the FBI had been victimized.
  The White House has said that its collection of FBI files of private 
citizens was an innocent mistake. That is their response before the 
facts are examined and seems to reflect an instinctual reaction by the 
White House anytime questions arise concerning their operations. The 
facts have yet to be fully examined and it strikes me as premature and 
politically convenient to describe this situation as a ``bureaucratic 
snafu.''
  Initially, the White House would have us believe that Mr. Marceca was 
a random detailee from the Army who had been arbitrarily selected to 
work temporarily at the White House. We have since learned that Mr. 
Marceca--who along with Mr. Livingstone handled the sensitive files--is 
actually a seasoned Democrat political operative. They both have 
extensive political campaign experience. Mr. Marceca sought the post at 
the White House to work with his friend, Mr. Livingstone, and officials 
in the White House counsel's office wrote to the Secretary of Defense 
requesting his assignment.
  Recently, we learned that Craig Livingstone--who was the White House 
personnel security director--boasted on his resume that he staged 
counter- 
events for President Clinton during the 1992 Presidential campaign. 
Earlier, we learned that his experience in personnel security was 
limited to his work with President and Mrs. Clinton's Hollywood 
producer friends during the Inaugural activities. Clearly, Craig 
Livingstone was not qualified to serve as the head of the White House 
personnel security office.
  The one thing we have yet to learn is who hired Craig Livingstone. No 
one takes credit for his employment. Although a retired FBI agent says 
that he was told by White House counsel that Mrs. Clinton wanted him in 
that position. Mrs. Clinton has denied being responsible.
  At one point senior Presidential adviser, George Stephanopoulos, 
praised Craig Livingstone saying he was the man to see whenever you 
wanted anything done. Lately, Mr. Stephanopolous has said he does not 
know Livingstone that well, has only seen him around. The Washington 
Post has referred to Craig Livingstone as a phantom appointment. In a 
June 28 editorial, the Washington Post went on to say,

       At this stage, nobody at the White House will claim credit 
     for Craig Livingstone. It gets you wondering whether there 
     are other people working in sensitive spots in the White 
     House who are, well, just there, and whose hiring cannot be 
     accounted for . . . So people just walk in off the street, 
     sit down at a desk and send for files--or what?

  Mr. President, as you know, we are at this point because the White 
House only recently turned over documents pursuant to a long-ago 
subpoena from the House Oversight Committee. Within the documents 
submitted, the House Oversight Committee found a White House request to 
the FBI for sensitive background files on Billy Ray Dale. The request 
for FBI background on Mr. Dale was dated 7 months after he had been 
wrongly fired as head of the White House Travel Office. It was only 
after this was discovered by the House Oversight Committee did the 
White House admit it had collected FBI reports on hundreds of private 
citizens.
  Mr. President, it is important that hearings continue because right 
now we have more questions than answers. The American people demand 
accountability. The American people want to know what right Clinton 
administration officials have to request hundreds upon hundreds of 
sensitive FBI files on private citizens. What were they doing with this 
information? This latest troubling development within the Clinton 
administration represents a dangerous practice and one that deserves 
careful scrutiny. It is my hope that we will continue to examine this 
matter and uncover all of the facts for the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I yield up to 15 minutes to the 
distinguished assistant majority leader, the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Georgia 
for his leadership today and many times on the floor.
  The issue I am going to address today is not one that I enjoy, but it 
is one about which, I think, the American people are entitled to the 
facts. I want to read a quote that was made in January 1993 by 
President Clinton:

       I promise the most ethical administration in the history of 
     the Republic.

  January 24, 1993, quoted in the Washington Post.
  This administration has been anything but ethical. As a matter of 
fact, there has been a litany, a continuation of scandals that have 
been plaguing this administration. Some people say they are much to do 
about nothing. I disagree. I am afraid some of these scandals are quite 
serious. A lot are serious violations of the law, if they turn out to 
be proven true. Let me touch on a couple of them.
  Probably the most famous one is Whitewater. I heard a reporter 
saying, ``Well, there is not a whole lot of substance to that.'' Yet, 
the Governor of Arkansas lost his job over Whitewater. There must have 
been some substance to the allegations.
  Obstruction of justice is against the law, and there were reports 
that were subpoenaed that took over 2 years to surface, and they 
surfaced adjacent to Mrs. Clinton's quarters, or in her library, which 
had very limited access. Obstruction of justice is against the law, and 
those files just recently somehow appeared.
  There is information in Vincent Foster's office that dealt with tax 
returns and dealt with Whitewater and dealt with a lot of different 
things that, again, mysteriously disappeared for months. Reports are 
that they were actually in the personal quarters of President and Mrs. 
Clinton. Those are serious violations of the law if they are 
obstructing justice, obstruction of the investigation of Mr. Foster's 
death.
  A lot of other things have come to light. I will just run through a 
litany of them very quickly. In the book ``Blood Sport,'' Mr. Stewart 
talked about the Clinton's deducting $20,000 in a principal payment. I 
think everyone knows that you deduct interest; you cannot deduct 
principal. My son is 26 years old. He recently purchased a townhouse. 
He knows you deduct interest; you cannot deduct principal. Yet you had 
a Rhodes scholar and an attorney, the President and Mrs. Clinton, and 
they deducted $20,000 or more in principal. That is a violation of law. 
That is tax evasion, and that is wrong.
  Consider Mrs. Clinton's profits that were made from a $1,000 
investment in cattle futures or commodity trading that grew to $100,000 
in 10 months, that defies probability. I heard some people say that the 
chances of that happening are one out of a billion. It is not possible. 
Certainly it looks corrupt. Again, I remember President Clinton's 
speech in 1992. He said, ``The decade of greed is over.'' But yet you 
see this type of thing going on.
  There is a trial in Arkansas right now where two bankers are accused 
of illegally getting $53,500 in cash for the Clinton campaign. I heard 
President

[[Page S7364]]

Clinton is not on trial. I have not heard anybody say, ``Well, what 
were they doing with $53,000 in cash?'' Every person in this room that 
has run a campaign--we all have campaigns, and maybe you need a couple 
hundred dollars in cash every once in awhile, maybe. But you do not 
need $53,000 in cash for anything that is legal. I have not heard that 
question being asked. Maybe it was legal. Maybe it is legal to take 
$10,000 in cash and distribute it around the State, or $50,000. But I 
cannot imagine it.
  To me it sounds very unethical. Yet that trial is going on today on 
whether or not the funds were laundered, and what his involvement was, 
and whether jobs were involved quid pro quo for exchange of those kinds 
of contributions. But why in the world would somebody have $53,000 in 
cash? I have run three statewide campaigns. I do not know that we ever 
had $1,000 in cash. I cannot imagine $53,000.
  They knew they were breaking the law, a community of individuals did, 
when they were withdrawing the money from the bank because they tried 
to hide it. So they knew there was some risk. But somebody in the 
campaign wanted a lot of cash. That is directly related to, at that 
time, Governor Clinton.
  Now, Mr. President, we get into this scandal, this latest one, 
Filegate. What brought some of that about? Travelgate and the fact that 
seven members of the travel office of the White House were fired. I 
have always said they had a right to put in their own people, but they 
did not have a right to call in the FBI to try to justify an abuse of 
power by firing them and then prosecuting Billy Dale. Billy Dale's FBI 
file was requested 7 months after he was fired. That is a real abuse of 
power.
  They did not need the FBI file then, yet they requested the file on 
him and hundreds of others, maybe several hundred. And 408 was the 
number that people are using now. Originally, it was a couple hundred, 
then 400. Now we find maybe another 300, maybe Mr. Marceca had several 
hundred others. Maybe well over 1,000 files the White House had on 
individuals. But the FBI files were certainly an abuse of power. The 
408 were almost all on Republicans. So if it was not political, why 
were they only investigating Republicans? Why were they investigating 
individuals who had not had access to the White House in over a year or 
longer?
  These files were requested in December 1993 and early 1994, all upon 
Republicans who left the White House at least a year earlier. These 
were for permanent access to the White House so they would have open 
access to come and go as you please. The individuals whose FBI files 
were collected did not need permanent access to the White House. They 
could get a visitor's pass like anybody here can. If you go visit the 
White House or if you have a special guest, you get a pass for a day. 
You do not need an FBI background check for a visitor's pass. But a 
background check was requested by the White House for these at least 
408 individuals.

  This is a real abuse of power. A real abuse of power. Maybe an 
egregious abuse of power. It is particularly egregious that the White 
House requested the FBI file on Billy Dale whom they previously fired. 
Yet, not only did they fire him, but they prosecuted him and persecuted 
him and wanted to try to justify their firing of him. They did not have 
a good reason to fire him except maybe to replace him with some 
cronies. So they tried to justify their firing of him by pulling in the 
FBI. That is an abuse of power, and certainly should be reviewed.
  But when we find out now that they requested the files of 408 others, 
and they were in the hands of not national security people, they were 
in the hands of Mr. Livingstone and Mr. Marceca, two people who would 
be charitably defined as political hacks, hatchet men, people who 
wanted to dig up dirt on opponents, and did that in past campaigns, and 
had access to private files which could destroy the lives and careers 
of individuals, that is unbelievable. And it happened, happened in this 
administration. For President Clinton to say it was a bureaucratic 
snafu I think belittles the intelligence of the American people.
  Mr. President, when Senators receive an FBI file--it is done very 
seldom. I have only done it a couple times, a few times. Any time I 
have had an FBI file in my office, that FBI file has also been 
accompanied by an FBI agent or a staff member with particular security 
clearance. That file does not leave the presence of the FBI agent or 
that staff member with special clearance. I cannot Xerox it. I cannot 
photocopy it. I cannot take notes from it. I cannot do anything with 
it. I cannot pick somebody and say, here is what it says. I can read it 
and hand it back. That file does not leave the presence of an FBI agent 
or that special staff member.
  That file, when it leaves my office, is returned to a locked vault. 
It is not obtainable or accessible by anyone. To think that the White 
House obtained hundreds and evidently were trying to get hundreds more, 
had those in not a secure area, not in an area that was protected, 
under the control of a couple of political hacks, for whatever reason, 
is really not acceptable. We would not have found out this information 
if it had not been for the House of Representatives and their 
threatening contempt-of-Congress action against this administration.
  So, Mr. President, it is with real regret, but when I read the 
President's quote of January 4, 1993, which says, ``I promise the most 
ethical administration in the history of the Republic,'' I just laugh. 
This may be the most unethical administration. It certainly brings back 
comparisons to Watergate and the Nixon administration. But this 
administration may even exceed some of the abuses of power that 
transpired at that time. I do not say that lightly. It is with real 
regret.
  Mr. President, I just urge the White House to begin cooperating, as 
the President said that he would. They have yet to date to release all 
information that the House committee has requested. We still do not 
know who hired Mr. Livingstone. We do not know what are in the files 
Mr. Marceca has. Mr. Marceca has taken the fifth. He refused to testify 
before a Senate committee. That is his right to do so. Maybe the White 
House should encourage him, ``No, don't take the fifth. Go ahead and 
tell everything you know. Release the information. Let's see what was 
on your disc that has all this information on Republicans, and so on. 
Let the information come out. Let's find out the truth.''
  Let us find out the truth on Mrs. Clinton's commodity trading. How 
did she make a profit that goes from $1,000 to $100,000 in 10 months? 
We need to find out answers to that. What did happen to the billing 
records or to the Rose Law Firm Whitewater billing records that were in 
the White House for 2 years?
  We need answers to these questions. I heard Mr. Clinton say, ``I hope 
we find out the answers.'' But the White House really has not 
cooperated. Certainly, they have not been the most ethical 
administration in the history of the Republic. Quite the contrary, they 
may be the most unethical administration in the history of the 
Republic. I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. In just a moment I am going to yield, but I first want 
to thank the assistant majority leader for the contributions he has 
made in the grave questions that are hanging over Washington here 
today. As usual he has done it in an exemplary manner.
  I am going to read one more quote, and then I am going to yield to 
the Senator from Idaho. This is in the Washington Post, Wednesday, July 
3. It says:

       It doesn't get any better with Anthony Marceca, the on-loan 
     Army civilian who improperly requisitioned and reviewed more 
     than 700 FBI files. Mr. Marceca, it now turns out, wasn't 
     retained at the White House following his 6-month stint. 
     Again from Mr. Kennedy's deposition: ``Tony's background had 
     come in, and there were some problems revealed with it that 
     made me think it might be better if he kind of went back to 
     where he was.'' And Mr. Marceca did. But he returned to Mr. 
     Livingstone's White House office long enough, reportedly, 
     to gain unauthorized access to his own FBI file, which 
     enabled him to sue two sources he believed provided 
     negative testimony against him. What a pair.

  So the Washington Post is saying. What a pair Tony Marceca and Mr. 
Livingstone have turned out to be. It is beyond comprehension that 
these people

[[Page S7365]]

would be at the center of security in the White House of the United 
States of America.
  Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. KEMPTHORNE. I thank the Senator from Georgia for his efforts 
today. Mr. President, I will address this issue from the aspect of the 
type of security and sensitivity that surrounds an individual FBI file, 
Federal Bureau of Investigation. I come at it as a member of the Senate 
Armed Services Committee.
  From time to time, it was my responsibility to review the FBI file of 
a nominee who would be coming forward for Senate confirmation. When I 
review that file, it would be done in the privacy of my office. No 
staff members were allowed to be present. Those are the rules under 
which we must operate. The individual bringing the sealed file over--in 
this case, it would be from the White House general counsel, or it 
could be an FBI agent--remains in the room with the individual Senator 
as we review this extremely sensitive material.
  Now, what type of material is in there? It can include the tax 
information of the person that has been reviewed, the personal finances 
back just as far as you want to go, the credit histories of the 
individual. If you had some problems in the past with your credit, if 
you had some areas that have been a problem, they are identified. The 
international travel which you have taken: Where have you been, why 
were you there, who did you see? The education, of course, including 
your college and high school grades; your work history; your health.
  I spoke to a highly successful professional who has had to have an 
FBI file constructed on his behalf only to have him contacted and 
asked, ``Well, have you had a mental disorder in the past, in fact, at 
the age of 18?'' This individual has to think and say, ``Well, at one 
time I went in and because of stress that we were going through, work 
related,'' the individual is a workaholic, the physician had put down 
mental exhaustion. Is that what is recorded, then, as a mental disorder 
in this file?
  How many Americans would like to have interviews conducted among 
their neighbors and among their coworkers and friends, again, for as 
many years back? Do you think perhaps somewhere in that history there 
is somebody that may have a beef, somebody that maybe does not think 
you are just as good as others may think you are? They can share that, 
and none of these have to be corroborated or substantiated, but they go 
into those files. That is how sensitive this material is.
  Now, I have described for you the process that an individual Member 
of the Senate goes through when called upon to review an FBI file, one 
file. Now, how in the world do we make this quantum jump that someone 
who was a political operative, that nobody in the White House can now 
determine whoever hired this person, can call up the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, probably one of the most highly regarded law enforcement 
agencies of the entire world, to have some political operative call the 
FBI and say, ``I want these files.'' Not just one file, two files, but 
as has been substantiated, hundreds of files, hundreds of files.

  If I were a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I would 
feel that my entire credibility was being questioned, that this sort of 
political operation has somehow clouded over that law enforcement 
agency. I believe that not only does it question the credibility of the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation, but I think it has created an enormous 
cloud over the people's house, the White House of the United States of 
America, where political operatives have access to those files of the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and nobody knows how it happened or 
how that person was hired. Yet, that person is the director of 
personnel security for the White House. Something is wrong. Something 
is very, very wrong.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Idaho. I think 
he has added a very important ingredient. While many citizens, I think, 
understand how sensitive the FBI files are by their nature, that it is 
a collection of truth and gospel, nevertheless, recorded in the files, 
he has hit on a very sensitive nerve, that by discussing what is on the 
inside of those files he is telling all American citizens how very, 
very sensitive these files are and how damaging they can be, and for 
those reasons the FBI has traditionally guarded these files jealously, 
which is why I will refer to that in a minute, why Director Freeh is so 
disturbed about circumstances that have occurred here. I thank the 
Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. President, I have been in the mood to quote newspapers here this 
afternoon. I have a copy of today's Washington Times. It has a 
photograph of the Vice President announcing his bid for President in 
1988. The heading is, ``Oh, That Guy: The Controversy Surrounding 
Filegate Will Undoubtedly Intensify This Week as Congress Reconvenes 
After the Fourth of July Recess.'' It goes on to say that the Vice 
President doesn't recall much about his 1988 campaign as it relates to 
Mr. Livingstone. He does offer that the advance man performed well in 
his duties, but the picture is most interesting because it is the Vice 
President and Mrs. Gore, one other fellow, and Mr. Livingstone, right, 
front and center.
  Mr. President, in the testimony that we have heard this morning or 
the statements that have been made time and time again, we refer to the 
number of files, which, as I said, went from 300 to 400 to 600 to 700, 
and now I have seen a figure of 900. I believe, as important as the 
discussion is about what was going on at the White House, is the 
question, what was going on at the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
  I cite in this June 14 for immediate release from the Office of the 
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: ``The FBI inquiry has 
also discovered Director Freeh said that the White House has identified 
408 files sought and received by the White House without jurisdiction. 
Freeh said those files had been voluntarily surrendered by the White 
House to the FBI,'' and it goes on with a series of numbers.
  My question is, after intense ``inquiry'' of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, how is it that the number of files certified by the FBI 
that were turned over to the White House is not the right number? One 
would think after ordering sweeping new measures to protect sensitive 
background investigation files and an inquiry in the FBI itself that by 
now there would be no question as to the number of files that had been 
obtained by the White House from the FBI.
  I hope that the appropriate committees of jurisdiction will pursue 
answers from the FBI as to how in the world, given the long history and 
the depth of the sensitivity of these files, how in the world a siren 
would not go off by the time you had gotten to hundreds and hundreds of 
these files leaving the FBI.
  I want to read another statement or two from this report, and then I 
am going to yield my time back. I know the Senator from Virginia is 
anxious to do a statement in morning business. I will not be but a 
minute or two longer.

       It is important to note, Director Freeh said, that the FBI 
     report contains this finding on the files requested by and 
     given to the White House. Among the unquestionably 
     unjustified acquisitions were reports relating to discharged 
     travel office employees, Billy Ray Dale and Barnaby Brasseux. 
     Director Freeh ordered the inquiry on learning a week ago 
     that the White House requested and received a background file 
     of Dale, a former White House travel director, months after 
     he was fired. This does not sound like an arbitrary 
     bureaucratic error, particularly in light of the difficulties 
     the White House has had with Mr. Dale.
       The FBI inquiry was expanded when it was learned that the 
     White House earlier--the Clinton administration--also 
     requested and received a large number of files on officials 
     in the previous Bush administration and other persons. In 
     addition, the FBI learned the White House requested and 
     received the FBI file on a second discharged travel employee, 
     Brasseux.

  I am reading directly from the material given to the public by the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  It says:

       In the past, the FBI routinely filled White House requests 
     for copies of previous background files without checking to 
     see if there were pending criminal investigations of the 
     subject. Under new procedures, there will be checks on all 
     subjects to determine if there are criminal investigations. 
     Director Freeh said it is now clear that the system was very 
     vulnerable to misuse and that government officials, over 
     several decades, including himself, had not provided adequate 
     oversight of the system, resulting now in violations of 
     privacy.

  In addition, Mr. President, we currently have letters from the House

[[Page S7366]]

committee chairman on ways and means to the Internal Revenue 
Department, IRS, the Commissioner, to determine if any of the data with 
regard to confidential tax matters is in this material, because if it 
is, that is a felony. Thorough clarification should be forthcoming from 
the Internal Revenue Service to comfort us that none of this 
information that was so willy-nilly distributed throughout the White 
House found its way into their hands, including material from the 
Internal Revenue Service.
  So, as has been demonstrated here this afternoon, there are a host of 
legitimate questions that have deep meaning with regard to the 
protection of the rights of individual citizens in these United States 
of America.
  Mr. President, with that, I conclude my remarks and yield back any 
time remaining that was dedicated to my control.
  Mr. ROBB addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Robb and Mr. Moynihan pertaining to the 
submission of Senate Resolution 276 are located in today's Record under 
``Submissions of concurrent and Senate resolutions.'')

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